Use these email address and you can get unlimited text just by paying for the data plan. Compose an email threw any of your email's setup on your phone. (I use my BlackBerry email) and use these email address to the person your sending a message to. They will recieve it as a text message. All they have to do is reply to your message and you get the message back as an email. NO CHARGE for texting !!!!!! Go to your address book, go to your friends name, edit, change email to wireless#@whateveraddress.com, compose an email to your friend and your all setup. Some of you guys might know this already but I just found this out and its working great. Hope it works for you guys as well.

Other (from: 15, msg: 100, total: 100)
If your provider isn't supported directly, enter the email address that sends you a text message in phone number field. To be safe, the entire message is sent in the body of the message, and the length limit is really short. We'd prefer you give us information about your provider so we can support it directly.

Voicestream (from: 15, msg: 140, total: 140)
Enter your 10-digit phone number. Message is sent via the email gateway, since they changed their web gateway and we have not gotten it working with the new one yet.

But if you don't have a txt plan everytime you get one back it costs you a dime unless everyone you txt with has a data plan and uses teleflip too. For $5/month you can do 400. I appreciate the technology, not the practicality. Does this really save you money?

When they reply you get charged, and when you respond, at least on my VZW 8703e, it goes to their phone via SMS and not email-SMS so even a quick three or four message barrage you only save one SMS on. (Unless you choose the destination each time and add it to your address book for the most common ones.) -Pk

I disagree. The carriers are the ones who have put these email to SMS gateways in place. Buy creating an easy to use method for users to email cellphones it stimulates additional SMS traffic from the recipient. I have many clients who use these gateways to send SMS messages to their employees through their desktops. If the remote worker replies that's SMS traffic on our network and money in our pockets. It would be counterintuitive for carriers to create the gateway but not assist their customers with its use.

When they reply you get charged, and when you respond, at least on my VZW 8703e, it goes to their phone via SMS and not email-SMS so even a quick three or four message barrage you only save one SMS on. (Unless you choose the destination each time and add it to your address book for the most common ones.) -Pk

Interesting ... this is not at all how it works on my Bell Mobility 8703e. If I send an email to (or even to ) it arrives at the destination cellphone as an SMS message with my email address as the return address. When the recipient replies the reply goes to my email address and arrives in my email inbox; it does not arrive as an SMS message.

From my end all I see is a series of short emails and from the recipient cellphone user's end all they see is a series of SMS messages. It's quite seemless when I use it.

If that's true you still need to pay for a txt plan, contrary to what the person at the top of the tread said. I'm confused!

If used properly then you should not need an SMS plan. When you send through teleflip.com or another gateway the return address is your email address. If the recipient replies directly to the SMS message that they have received then it should arrive on your BlackBerry as an email and use only your data package.

If, however, they send their reply to your mobile number then it will arrive on your BlackBerry as an SMS message.

Bear in mind, as well, that different carriers may transport the messages in different ways. A couple of test messages back and forth should be enough to verify exactly how the gateways function.

Interesting ... this is not at all how it works on my Bell Mobility 8703e. If I send an email to (or even to ) it arrives at the destination cellphone as an SMS message with my email address as the return address. When the recipient replies the reply goes to my email address and arrives in my email inbox; it does not arrive as an SMS message.

From my end all I see is a series of short emails and from the recipient cellphone user's end all they see is a series of SMS messages. It's quite seemless when I use it.

I'll contact VZW and see if I've got something that can be set differently but it's not that way for me. :-/ Thanks though, good data.. I'll work it. -Pk